The Statue that Starts It All

EVENTS NEWS #16
Date: 12/1/2012 at 0:30
From: Anonymous
To : Everyone
Subj: The Statue that Starts It All

Standing in the lengthening shadows, the Goddess Killian seems unaffected by the desert heat, a bastion of cool, swirling mists atop the shifting sands. Stepping away from a small encampment, She lifts a palm up, squinting prettily at the pile of writhing, crawling creatures dancing upon Her marked skin.

"I know, you were just following your nature," She murmurs to the insects, nodding as they seem to converse back with Her.

"Your bites were nothing compared to... theirs..." Killian insists, the scenes around Her shifting as She traverses the desert. "But now, I must ask you to show his people this, will you work for Me?"
-----

Mere moments before....

The sun rose in colors of pink and fiery orange as Baron Raelyr Matawa straightened up, his back hardly sore despite having been bent at odd angles during his furious overnight work. Rubbing a speck of dirt from the little clover, he thrust it into the air and turned to his beloved warhorse Lawn.

"Now She'll have to help us!" he declared to a rather underwhelmed steed. "Back to Krondor, we've got requests to make!"
-----

Raelyr's mouth was dry as he glanced between the Goddess merrily draped across his once-orderly desk and his suddenly much more amiable steed She was wooing with nibbles from his armory reports. "I um, I was hoping I might ask for news of Akaxi as part of my prize for winning Your cloverhunt," he managed to rasp out, the whole scene only adding to his nerves.

Not long ago, the Pathfinders had been dealt quite a blow with the odd disappearance of their Ranger General, Baron Akaxi Xacatecas. Raelyr himself had been spending countless nights awake and in mental combat with himself, wondering why he had not taken action when Salvatrice had tried to warn him that her husband had disappeared with a Keshian soldier.

Blinking back to the present and the Goddess staring expectantly at him, Raelyr finally asks, quite bluntly, "Can you tell me whether or not the General is alive?"

-----

Sunlight streams into the Pathfinder's training yard, the blinding glare of it burning the morbid statue before Raelyr into his vision and well beyond.

Drawn by the strange scents that tickled his nose moments ago in his office, the Goddess' gift was not at all what he'd asked for, though She was never really known for Her adherence to the expected.

Still, the strangely carved visage before him was only something he'd imagined in the darkest hours of his worrying for his friend.

Before him in sandstone was the prone and tortured image of Akaxi Xacatecas. Time had left the Tsurani man's lanky form nothing but harsh angles and limbs, one of which was lifted to block a blow from an aggressor Raelyr could not see.

Calling upon Karic first and later the advice of Elaisa, Raelyr's day was soon awash with fury and frustration. Why had She brought this, what could they do? As they gathered to first try and understand then respectfully return their friend's form to something more befitting his former stoicism, they were struck with the sudden realization that Killian's 'gift' was more than a mere artistic rendering.

Then, Akaxi's fingers crumbled away. Yet no magic of their creation could shift the sandstone... the constantly warmed sandstone.

Somewhere, Raelyr realized, his friend was very much alive. And he would not rest til he hurt those who'd done this to his dear friend, even if he had to raid Kesh all on his own.